A Maximum BMI for nurses

[soapydopeybubbles]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/10/21/how-public-thinks-nhs-should-change/

According to the Telegraph one of the most popular ideas for improving the NHS is to have a maximum BMI for nurses. This is from the website set up for suggestions but also continues in the comments for the article.

I'm a neonatal nurse and I am classed as obese. I wear L/XL scrubs and I'm a dress size 14-16.

Does the public honestly think that I'd be a better nurse if I was thinner? Or, as written in the comments, if I wore a cap and apron, had no tattoos and didn't dye my hair?

I'm a large woman but I'm pretty sure I wasn't magically better and making up complex medications, changing ridiculously tiny nappies and resuscitating sick newborns when I was rather thinner than I am now.

I can see why people might have the opinion that if we're giving out health advice we should lead by example but it's mainly the doctors giving the advice and the nurses doing the hands on caring.

I just don't understand why there seems to be such a focus on how a particular staff group looks, rather than the actual issues in the NHS.

AIBU?

Obesity isn't ridiculous.

@MagentaRavioli was spot on. It's not about demonising overweight nurses but figuring out why a workforce whose job is about health don't seem to be able to be healthy themselves.

Four million people voted Reform in the election. There are a lot of damn idiots out there. It’s unpleasant when it’s directed at you, but it says more about them.

No, the suggestion was made to humiliate and upset nurses, it's clearly not a genuine comment to improve the NHS as an employer in order to help its employees maintain to develop a more healthy lifestyle. Otherwise that's what it would have said, rather than the absolutely idiotic "maximum BMI" line.

I assume it will be the government who make the final decision on this. Let's start on their house first. From the PM down to the newest MP. Oh, and let's stop subsiding their fancy canteen too. Let them grab sandwiches from the extortionate and unhealthy M&S or Costa that now live inside hospitals.

Suspect many of the suggestions will be equally 'well' informed, based on tabloid prejudices over the years (fewer NHS managers despite the NHS being relatively under-managed compared with international benchmarks), no funded treatment for certain conditions (anything that will be inflammatory).

BTW, the last time I looked, obesity was correlated with night time shift work and low pay...

Knowing what I do now about the complex mechanisms and endocrinological underpinnings of weight maintenance, I’d say that we should no more bar doctors and nurses from working for weight reasons than we would for needing glasses, being diabetic, or taking statins.

The narrative underlying this idea is based on the now outdated and misunderstood idea that calories in v calories expended is all that matters. As a person with PCOS/hypothyroid who battled to maintain my weight most of my life, and lost that battle due to menopause and illness a few years ago, I know there are often complicated and subtle medical issues underlying less than ideal weight.

If we go down this route anyone with less than perfect health would not be allowed to practice. As a patient it is actually reassuring to be supported by people who have walked a few miles in your shoes and can offer empathy on a human level.

LOL i know nurses, they are all shapes and sizes

This.

Even the Telegraph only seems to have mentioned that as an example of a "bizarre" idea that's "blighted" the early stages of the consultation exercise. I wouldn't give it a second thought.

YANBU. I was grimly anticipating the 'lose some weight' conversation with the surgeon as I lay waiting for my breast cancer op. In she (yes!) walked, weighing as much, if not more, than I do (yes!!). Neither of us mentioned our rolls of lard. Yes, all clear thanks.

This!

I'm an obese AHP but no nurse so they'd be coming for us next probably!
We have enough of a shortage of nurses as it is without excluding any for daring to be overweight!

Came on to say this. Nurses sacrifice a lot for us.

I couldn’t agree more.

And I’m sorry for your struggles. I have a couple of friends with similar issues and the ignorant superiority of people looking for an outlet for their nastiness in a world where other forms of discrimination are - quite rightly - frowned upon makes their life unbearable at times.

I do find it patronising that I have to make an appointment with a nurse to tick the boxes on a questionnaire for my repeat pill prescription where she weighs me, while bursting out of her uniform.

I already know I need to maintain a healthy weight, drink only the advised units, not smoke and ensure my blood pressure is normal etc (for the medication and generally) and can measure and report all that that myself.

When the nurse can't even prescribe, and tries to make the 10 minute appointment I've had to make and get to 'worthwhile', it always consists of giving me advice I can tell she doesn't follow herself.

How much time and money have they wasted to produce to spout this rubbish out?

So don't follow it then. You know best.

Sounds like a cheap click-bait article. If it enrages people it will get views.

Very little. It was a suggestion on the currently running NHS consultation website.

I think they should do more to cut workplace stress in the NHS. Stress is a major contributing factor in weight gain and a lack of ability to lose weight, along with anti social hours and lack of healthy food options. I work for the NHS, and we do not have a staff canteen, staff have a choice between a sweets, crisp and coke vending machine, deliveroo or bringing their own. Anyone who picks up a last minute shift, long days or nights is screwed if they havent been to the supermarket. We have no on site sporting facilities available to staff either. It is not conducive to encouraging healthy lifestyles at all. We're having to import most of our nurses as it is.

The best dietician I ever met was moderately overweight - patients related to the weight struggle immensely!

True. Although wouldn’t she be failed or have some kind of consequence for not turning up to parts of her course?
Also you’d think the community might be easier. Hospitals are often massive!

Both myself and my DH heard this on the news and went to pause it as we thought we had misheard it. An absolutely ridiculous idea that won't go anywhere.

Personally I ignore the majority of stuff that the Telegraph publishes. It used to be a respected,albiet somewhat right wing publication but these days it has become rather extreme and sensationalist

@Pippa246 I have a BMI of 45 and work in the community, there isn't any task I can't do or patient I can't manage to get to, due to my weight.